RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,343
(get b0ld / speak up!)
By late March of that year, after
the worst of freeze and snow seemed
over, we went to a local appliance store.
Having exhausted our money by that
time, and with my weekly pay being
only an adequate living allowance for
the needed groceries and heating fuel,
we were using a series of 30-day, and
then 60-day notes, from the local
Troy Bank to meet other payments.
Many of the small-farm families did
the same; it was way of life there,
and if you once/first got established
as a credible 'credit risk' it was easy
to just roll each one over and get the
next. The interest-rate was about
4.5%, until it really began bounding
upward later. Most farmers did the
same process for funding - it was
how they purchased their seasonal
seeds, and equipment too. You'd
name your amount, ask their price,
they'd say 30 days or 60?, you'd sign
some papers, get a little remittance
coupon book, and walk out with
your dough, whether a few hundred
or some thousands. I'd seen people
do either.
-
We needed a washer and a dryer.
We had already gotten the new
kitchen stove, by necessity. The
next thing was the kitchen floor,
(it still had holes in it), and then
of course, for the next season a
new, and a real, 'furnace' (basement)
for a real heating system. In both of
those cases, fortunately, our combined
parents came to our assistance. We made
the arrangements for the kitchen floor
contractors to come by and give the
estimate. I had no idea what I'd be
looking at as an expense, but it was
much less than I feared - and $800
figure was bandied about. That
included what those guys called (a
most-ridiculous word which I'd really
thought they had just made up) the
'underlayment'. What they meant by
that was actually just the under-flooring
of the floor and new linoleum (a tile
pattern fakery). Right down to the
floor joists the floor would be opened
up and new plywood and all else installed.
Much like they do to a roof, when the
layers of roofing, or the rot, demand it.
Underlayment, regardless, seemed a
dumb-ass word. We OK'd it, and in
a few days ( I was working, and not
present), they did the job. My wife
said 'efficiently and directly.'
-
The floor turned out OK, in the style of
a late-1960's version of country-class.
I really don't think anyone installs
linoleum any more - now it's all tile,
or wood flooring. Even faux-wood.
The furnace was a bit more grueling,
and expensive too. The parents paid
a large portion of that - it was
something like 5-grand, but I got
the tab for like 35 bucks a month for
the next year or two; the portion they
didn't cover. As you can imagine, my
expenses were mounting and I was
about as naive as a new horse in a new
pasture about it all.
-
We had a lot of junk around on our
property and in the barn. There were
a metal-working lathe or two, an actual
crane in the field, with a 60 foot boom
(height) up high. It had a huge hook
on the end of the cable hanging down.
I had built that hook end, with some
wood, into a swing-seat, and it was
cool to push our son along on it. Others
who visited too like it. In addition there
were 4 or 5 older junked cars around,
all wrecks. My friends, when they
visited, always got a kick out of, with
me, setting up cans and bottles on the
(soon bullet-ridden) cars, for 'target'
practice, which basically meant 'missing'
the target - some 300 feet off. Guessing.
In any case, a year or two later, to raise
funds, I contacted the guy, Don Metz,
whose ownership all this equipment and
stuff was under. He was real nice about
it all. I asked for back-payment and storage
fees, as the rightful owner if the property,
for all his goods and machinery on my
property. I went to his place, in Elmira:
he owned a five story building, and a
salvage yard. In the building, he sold
used furniture, office equipment desks,
lamps, and all that sort of stuff. We talked,
and he said he'd be out to our place to
look things over and offer his settlement.
It was all friendly, and he seemed genial;
no harshness, no surly business crap.
-
Cigar-smoking Don Metz did come by one
day, in his Cadillac. A short, little, fat man,
with suspenders and a fedora. Really cool.
I walked him around, showing him all the
items I was talking about, and he saw and
agreed - he'd had them dropped there, some
years back, when old man Parmenter, a pal
of his, lived in our house. His proposal was
as follows (to which, yes, I readily agreed).
He'd pay two years of our property taxes,
(about 400 bucks a year), give us a cash
layout of 300 dollars, and have everything
carted away, at his expense. In addition,
he said we could walk through his warehouse
and take whatever household items or any
furnishings that caught our fancy - just
cart it away in your pickup, all lifting and
hauling on us. Not him. So we did. He paid
up, we got some chairs and a kitchen 'nook,'
a sort of table and pew-like bench seats for
kitchen use, instead of those dumb 1950's
kitchen tables everyone then had. It fit into
house setting real nice. Plus we got a porch
set and some outdoor chairs and things. In a
month's time, (again, I was at work), one by
one, all that stuff got carted away. yes, I missed
all the junk being around, and I really have
NO idea how he got the crane out, etc., but
it was all gone. Just holes in the ground where
wheels and tires had sunk in, and some new
gouges where they'd dug things out. And the
barn area too, was cleared out of the lathes
and other metal equipment, and we'd had
our taxes paid right through the next year!
Sometime it pays to get bold and speak up!
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